Sunday, March 30, 2014

Rainy weekend here in the Chesapeake, and yesterday I thought about the work of George Inness several times. As you know, if you follow this blog, I seldom feature landscape painters, but George Inness (1825-1894) is an exception. His early work was influenced initially by prints of the works of Claude Lorrain & the 17th-century Dutch landscape masters. He was also touched by the work of the leading Hudson River School painters - particularly that of Thomas Cole & Asher B. Durand - whose style is evident in some of his early canvases. Travel to Europe led him to be influenced by the work of the Barbizon school, & finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism found vivid expression in Inness’ works toward the end of his life. His mature works helped define the Tonalist movement. A few of Inness’ later paintings stay with me over time. The obscured details, diffused light, organic forms, & inherent glow of these paintings are surely evocative.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Frans Hals the Elder (c 1582-1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter born in the Southern Netherlands (present-day Belgium). He is known for his loose painterly brushwork, & he helped introduce this lively painting style into Dutch art.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

I got a call yesterday from a lady who was putting together a talk on paintings of women in the 1920s. While searching for portraits of women in Europe in the 1920s, I came across several wonderful paintings of Polish women set in amazing landscapes. Each of the artist's landscapes was more breathtaking than the last. And when he portrayed the wind in the mountain by using a woman hanging laundry, I was hooked.

Rafal Malczewski (Polish painter, 1892-1965) Quarry 1927

Painter & author Rafal Malczewski was the son of Polish painter Jacek Malczewski. He studied philosophy, architecture, agronomy, & painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, in Vienna. Between WWI & WWII, Rafal Malczewski gained considerable fame as a painter with exhibitions in Poland & beyond (International Biennale in Venice in 1932 , Berlin , Helsinki , Los Angeles , Moscow , New York). In the years 1917-1939, he lived in Zakopane, Poland; but during the war he traveled to Hungary, France, Brazil, the United States, & finally settled in Montreal, where he lived from 1942 until his death. He painted his landscapes & portraits in both oil & watercolor.

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On March 4, 2011, Emile de Bruijn of the National Trust in the UK, wrote on his blog "Treasure Hunt" of making history & art available to all: "Traditionally art history has been inherently elitist & exclusive, both socially & intellectually. Art tended to be commissioned by the upper classes. Connoisseurship was seen as a superior, refined skill & the products of art-historical scholarship were guarded almost as fiercely as the art itself."

On May 29, 1012, William Noel, now Director of Special Collections Center & Director of Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies. University of Pennsylvania, told The TED Blog, "...digital data is not a threat to real data, it’s just an advertisement that only increases the aura of the original, so there just doesn’t seem to be any point in putting restrictions on the data. There is the further fact that the data is funded by taxpayers’ money. So it didn’t seem fair to limit what taxpayers could do with the data that they paid for."

On February 7, 2017, Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced a new policy: all images of public-domain artworks in the Museum's collection are now available for free & unrestricted use. "We have been working toward the goal of sharing our images with the public for a number of years. Our comprehensive & diverse museum collection spans 5,000 years of world culture & our core mission is to be open & accessible for all who wish to study & enjoy the works of art in our care. Increasing access to the Museum’s collection & scholarship serves the interests & needs of our 21C audiences by offering new resources for creativity, knowledge, & ideas."